Saturday, 3 December 2016

Blog Carnival Day 6

"What do you think of the mythology and backstory of creatures? Do you have any favorite background details in the world? Any pet theories or thoughts, or questions you would like answered?"

I'll admit a fact that makes me sad, which is that I actually don't know an awful lot about the mythology and backstory of Creatures. I could tell you that the Shee are the ancient creators of a bunch of different technologies and stuff (I think...?) and that Norns and Grendels (maybe Ettins and the Shee too, but I'm not sure) were named based on a couple of things from real life mythology. That's essentially the extent of my knowledge regarding the mythology. And like I said, this makes me sad.

So, to answer the part "Any questions you would like answered?" my answer is, "Everything! Tell me where I can learn all this wonderful stuff!"

So I've made a solution: I'm going to go look up about all this Creatures mythology and come back and tell you the most interesting things I've found. I'm going to write this as I look stuff up so expect it to be a bit messy.

Ooooooooh. I knew the Shee had made a bunch of cool stuff but I didn't know that they made basically all life on Albia (Norns, Grendels, & Ettins). They even made Norns basically to be their servants. That's actually really cool and interesting! I wonder if they sat around their little genetic creation tables trying to make life but failing 65 times before they get it right, just like I do...

Hey, I accidentally made a perfect segue into the next bit: Grendels were apparently a failed genetic experiment by the Shee! I never would have even guessed. (And maybe I am a bit like a Shee after all...)

Holy cow! Apparently the Shee also made most of their discoveries by accident! I am like a Shee!

Maybe that's the secret of who's behind the hand: maybe you're just playing as a Shee who's come back to Albia to lord over the Norns all on your own now that the rest of the Shee are gone?

That's one thing that I did somewhat know - the Shee are no longer on Albia. What I didn't know is that they left in a ship called the Ark to go and find a spherical planet to live on rather than disc-shaped Albia.

I mentioned how the names of things were derived from real mythology, but I didn't realise until just now how many things take names from real myths. For example, the city of Niflheim is derived from Norse mythology and so is the very name "Norn". Speaking of the city of Niflheim, the city is a place built by Norns a long time ago that every Norn is supposed to go to as part of "The Journey", a kind of adventure that each Norn is supposed to take at some point in their lives. There's several places that the Norn has to visit to complete the Journey: the desert of Volund, Niflheim, the Mountains of Ragnarok, and Urdur's well, and then return over the Meniscus Sea. It's interesting to consider: many of these places mentioned seem to have places you can see in-game that match up: for example, there's a well if you go left from the jukebox. Perhaps this "Journey" is something that the Norns undertake as they wander randomly around Albia?

Did you know that the language Norns speak is called "Bibble"? I didn't.

All right, well if I keep going I don't think I'll ever stop. Honestly it was really interesting to learn a bunch of this stuff about the Creatures world and I'm glad I took the time to do it. Maybe you even learned something too? Whatever the case, I have one last interesting tidbit for you, this time a quote I found on the Creatures wiki from Steve Grand about the mythology of the games: "I never intended Creatures to be an adventure game or have a fixed plot at all - the idea was that you would create your own stories". Basically what he's saying is that the mythology isn't the plot of the game; it just serves as a background to flesh it out so you can enjoy your own experience of the game.